And now I want to be an ethologist again. Or maybe not. Horowitz is currently a term assistant professor and in psychology, not animal science, so sounds like the job market for ethologists is just as messed up as any other. Then again, she wrote a NYT best selling books, so she’s doing OK. (Note to self: start finding research projects that you can turn into best-selling general audience books!)

Anyway, if you want to read smart general-audience work on animal behavior and/or if you’re a dog lover, I recommend the book.

And quoth Grad Student:
“Most of us find their type of ‘science’ to be highly questionable, biased, and full of cultural assumptions. There is a lot of good that can come from evolutionary biology, but evopsych is pretty much nonsense.”

I think I can safely cede most of my comment space to these two good gentlepeople. I will observe, however, that one can get the bizarre impression that ev psychs are actually respected scientists, if one makes the error of speaking to one of them about it. The punishing stream of blatherskite that will result from such an interaction should serve the querent as a deterrent.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674057302

Happy holidays to all y’all over here in mondo d’Historiann. Here’s to peace, happiness, and a totally gay military in the coming year!

Or DID this as little girls! (Or, not so little girls. I’ll have to post a photo of Creepy Doll Head garden in hibernation soon.)

There’s a lot of aggression in modern American girls’ doll play, that’s for sure.

I clicked through to the article’s abstract online (unfortunately I can’t access the whole article). The abstract is a little… problematic. It’s seriously clear to me that neither author has a firm grip on the concept of culture or on conducting cross-cultural comparisons (which arguably this is).

There are tons of arrrrgh moments just in the abstract, but my main beefs are:

1. Dolls, wheeled toys, and pretend weaponry are not sticks. And vice versa.

2. Monkeys are not apes are not children.

3. Monkeys understand human cultural constructs of female/male and what symbolic objects are associated with them? Really? For ALL human cultures? Pretty awesome.

4. Sex and gender are so very not the same thing.

5. Monkeys and apes have had millions of years of evolution, just like us. They’re not time capsules. Discuss.

6. How exactly does one carry a stick “in a manner suggestive of rudimentary doll play”?

7. Neither author apparently has daughters who have cut Barbie’s hair, popped off her head, and buried her in the back garden.